


A Passel of Pigeons

by ba_lailah



Category: Lily's Garden (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29257791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_lailah/pseuds/ba_lailah
Summary: Lily tries to figure out her relationship with Rachel. Rachel helps.
Relationships: Lily Roberts/Rachel Kawakami, background Lily Roberts/Luke Lorenzo
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	A Passel of Pigeons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shnuffeluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/gifts).



Lily's never dated anyone with a kid and a co-parenting ex before, so she doesn't really know what's weird or not. Is it weird that she and Rachel are friends? It doesn't feel weird. It feels... nice. Rachel's over all the time, dropping off Karen or picking her up, talking with Luke about birthday party plans or swapping custody weeks so she can take Karen to see Rachel's parents over spring break. Lily would see her whether she wanted to or not. So it's good that they get along.

And since they get along and both like gardening, it makes sense that Rachel would end up hanging out and gardening with Lily while Luke and Karen are off getting daddy-daughter time.

And since they're gardening, which means their hands are busy and they don't make eye contact, it makes sense that they talk about a lot of things. Sometimes personal things. The kind of things Lily's only ever talked about with her therapist or her boyfriends. But it's not like therapy and it's not like talking with a boyfriend. It's not like talking with a friend either. It's... Lily doesn't know what it is. 

Maybe it's just that they've both had sex with the same guy. Maybe this is just what it's like to be friends with someone who used to fuck your boyfriend. Certain boundaries and barriers just kind of aren't there.

At least Lily's gotten over being worried that Rachel will somehow want Luke back. Rachel's got a new girlfriend named Caro, a six-foot-tall fashion designer whom Lily finds somewhat terrifying, and they're clearly smitten with each other. Caro doesn't like to get her hands dirty, so she always turns down Lily's invitations to join them for gardening. "But don't worry," Rachel says as they're trimming the maple in the zen garden. "She doesn't mind me coming over to see you."

"Mind?" Lily fumbles her own shears, nearly dropping them. "Why would she mind?"

"Because you're cute and we spend a lot of time together." Rachel considers a branch and decides to leave it. "But I told her that if she's going to date me, she needs to accept that my existing relationships are what they are."

Lily puts the shears down before she stabs herself. "Are, uh. We. In a relationship?" She's so confused. She doesn't think of Rachel that way at all. They've never flirted—at least, Lily doesn't think they have, though she's not into women, so she's not sure she'd know if a woman flirted with her. But she's not into women! So how could she and Rachel be dating?

"Well." Rachel moves around the other side of the tree, maybe on purpose. She's a bit muffled, but Lily can still hear her, though she can't see her at all. "We're in relation to each other."

Lily rolls her eyes. "What does _that_ mean, Ms. San Francisco?" She hears Rachel laugh through the leaves. She likes making her laugh.

Wait, fuck, what if she _is_ in love with Rachel? But she pokes at the part of herself that falls in love with people and all she gets back is an image of Luke's sweet, dorky face as he kissed her awake that morning. The memory makes her grin the goofy grin that she only does when she's really fallen for someone. She doesn't grin like that for Rachel. Ergo: not in love.

"It means we share a degree of intimacy." She hears Rachel's shears go _snip_. "I don't tell just anyone the things I've told you, you know."

"Yeah, I... you're the only one I talk to like this, honestly," Lily says. "I've told you some things I haven't even told Luke or Regina."

"Right. I'm your boyfriend's daughter's mother, and that makes us a sort of sideways family."

"I don't talk to anyone in my family this way either," Lily says. For some reason, the thought of Rachel only spending time with her because of their connection through Luke and Karen makes her face feel hot and uncomfortable. "It's not just that, is it?"

There's a silence. She can hear Roxy barking at a squirrel somewhere, and robins singing to each other. 

Rachel comes back around the tree and waits until Lily looks up and meets her eyes. "It's not just that," she says.

"But I'm not—" The word is awkward in Lily's mouth, like a borrowed dress that doesn't fit. "Bisexual."

Rachel shrugs one shoulder. "I don't think that matters. The ways humans can connect with one another are so much more diverse than the little boxes we call 'friendship' or 'dating' or marriage.' Sometimes someone just fits into your life and becomes one of your important people. That's what you are to me."

The hot feeling in Lily's face turns into a blush. 

"And Caro doesn't get to tell me who's important to me," Rachel continues, startling Lily, who had forgotten that was where this all started. "She understands that I have people who are my people, and that I want to spend a fair amount of time with them. She accepts that. She's got her own people to see when I'm here."

"You're important to me too," Lily blurts. "I don't... I didn't have a word for it. All the words I had weren't right. But that feels right."

Rachel smiles at her. "I'm glad," she says.

That's about all the emotional intensity Lily can handle. "I think I need to go rake some gravel," she says.

And because Rachel gets her, in that no-name-for-it way that no one else gets her, Rachel smiles and says, "I'll go do some weeding around the pond."

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, as they work in quiet harmony and talk about anything and everything, Lily pokes occasionally at a new part of her, or a part she hadn't known was there. It's not the part of her that falls in love with people, or the part of her that's friends with people, but it's sort of... a neighbor to them. Or maybe the neighborhood of it. Yeah, a neighborhood, that's a nice thought. Lots of little houses inside her like the perches in the dovecote, and the people who are important to her—whatever kind of important they are—live there all alongside one another, popping their heads out now and then to coo and eat some birdseed.

Wait, no. But... something like that.

As the sun starts sinking, Karen comes looking for them. "I picked a green bean in the victory garden," she reports. "Then I ate it."

"Did you like it?" Rachel asks. Karen and vegetables don't often get along.

Karen shrugs one shoulder, looking just like her mom for a moment. "It tasted green, I guess. I dunno."

Lily stretches, feeling the pleasant ache of a good day's work outdoors. "Want to pick some more for dinner? I can make a lemon butter to go on them."

Karen's face brightens. She'll eat just about anything lemony. "Okay!" she says, running off.

 _Birdseed,_ Lily thinks as she and Rachel follow at a more sedate pace. _That's why making dinner for Luke and Karen and Rachel feels so nice, and why I like finding music for Regina to dance to. I'm putting out birdseed for my doves._

Then she realizes something. "Oh no," she groans.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asks.

"I'm going to have to explain to Regina why she's a pigeon," Lily says. "She _hates_ pigeons."

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "I think I missed something." 

"I'll explain over birdseed," Lily says. She tugs a lemon from one of the trees, smiling at its pebbled weight and luminous scent, and they make their way back to the house.


End file.
